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29.11.13

The World According to 'Gap':Sikhs, Tokenism and Mistaken Xenophobia

Gap has managed two marketing scoops within a short
period. It got a Sikh model, Waris Ahluwalia, to be the face of its Holiday
2013 campaign, and when one of the hoardings was defaced it scored
by acting against the racist attack and promptly posted the ad as its
background picture on Twitter.

People who
wear Gap could now also wear a halo.
Those who did not became potential loyalists. Are people all that easy to
please, or are these gestures a great way to divert attention from dealing with
the real stuff? Who buys anything only because of the models? Lady Gaga's piss,
the latest gimmick to market it as a limited edition fragrance, is a quirk.

The conscience of commerce

Had Gap used Prabhjot Singh, the Columbia
University professor who was beaten up on September 21 after being called
“Osama” in the increasing incidence of White terror the symbolism would have
been more potent. But that is never the plan. A message by a Sikh on Gap’s Facebook page says it all: “Thanks
for honouring Sikh culture in your ad, Gap. #Respect.”

Somewhere in
the Bronx, in the hoarding of the garment ad that had the words "Make
love", love was replaced with bombs. Beneath the logo was scrawled,
“Please stop driving taxis”.

The person
who helped this drivel get a premiere opening was a media commentator. He took
it upon himself to awaken
people about what goes on in “a haven of tolerance”, New York City, where
one in every three residents is an immigrant. “I wanted the world to see how
millions of brown people are viewed in American today,” wrote Arsalan Iftikhar.

Gap, according to him, is way ahead in fighting for
minority rights. “…as the year 2014 inches closer to us, I want to live in an
America where a fashion model can be a handsome, bearded brown dude in a turban
who is considered as beautiful as a busty blonde-haired white girl in
see-through lingerie.”

He
completely loses the plot. For someone who describes himself as a “person of
color” he seems to forget that white is also a colour. He has problems with
stereotypes and yet falls into the same fetid rut not only regarding race, but
also of how women are viewed by men. The transposition is disingenuous and
completely off. In fact, it only conforms to the set piece of advertising as
titillation.

The Gap ad is not the first. In June 2008, Kenneth
Cole had put out an ad that stated: “A Sikh male, about 25 to 35 years old, who
is ‘attractive’” for a worldwide campaign titled ‘Non-Uniform Thinkers’. Sonny
(Sandeep) Caberwal was one of the faces of its campaign focus: “We all walk in
different shoes.” This too was in New York. A life-size picture of the model
was at the Rockefeller Centre. The Sikh community honoured Caberwal.

How does
being attractive and of a certain age send out any special message? The fashion
house specified Sikh male; they wanted a bloody turban to sell their “different
shoes” idea. They were using him and his religious identity. “Non-uniform”
means different, as in not one kind. So the Sikh was being hoisted up in
cardboard form but he sure was not a part of the mainstream.

“People think Sikhs are fundamentalist, outside the mainstream
of society, or immigrants or something is wrong with them. Kenneth Cole wanted
to represent the fabric of American culture. There’s a lot of struggle in the
United States as to how we perceive people post 9-11. I’m as much American as
anyone else.”

Racism in
the retail space is about magnanimity, and has little or nothing to do with how
perceptions work or can change. Over-the-counter tokenism has many takers
because it works as a placebo.

Clutching at origins

Most citizens
of a pluralistic society would also want to retain traces of their origin, and hold
it up as evidence of multi-culturalism. However, it is not quite so simple. If
the ‘superior race’, and by that I mean the host country, offers hors d’oeuvres
by way of acceptance, then the immigrant guest indulges in a ritualistic form
of debriefing.

The Surat Initiative’s
noble purpose is to introduce themselves to Americans by offering to tie a
turban for them. This is mere exotica, a feather in the cap, flowers in the
hair, not inclusiveness. No one dressed up in costume, as it were, would feel
different, even if they look different. Besides, who are these Americans? Do
the Sikh groups approach Blacks, Hispanics, Asians? There is an assumption that
only white Americans are the authentic citizens; it nullifies the whole theory
about the “core values” of the country. Pluralism isn’t about pointing out differences.

Prabhjot
Singh too appears to carouse the pantomime when he says,
"I want to live in a community where somebody feels comfortable asking me
'Hey, what's on your head? Why do you have that beard? What are you doing here?
Are you American?' I think we should be able to ask those questions.”

In civil
discourse, this would be deemed offensive. He is putting an identity to the
test of a prejudging jury. It is frightening and intrusive. Do Jews have to
explain to anybody in the United States what the kippah they wear on their head
signifies and whether they are American despite it, which is the implication of
Singh’s argument? If this serves to ensure an equitable social space, would
Sikhs be as comfortable posing queries about American naturalised habits and
rituals?

Nobody needs
a modern state to be discussing religion as its primary hallmark. We have the
Pam Gellers who have problems with “Muslim turkeys” for Thanksgiving. Their
response to a faith arises mainly from their adherence to another. A
slaughtered bird does not adhere to any belief system.

Mistaken identity

It is not
said out loud, but the Sikh community does resent being the fallout on the war
against terrorism. In so many ways this is tragic that there has to be a study
on ‘Turban Myths’ by Stanford researchers and the Sikh American Legal Defense
and Education Fund (SALDEF). 70 per cent Americans think Sikhs are Muslim.
Therefore, one cannot dismiss this as ignorance. Stereotypes are blinding and
willing to smother whatever comes in the line of blinkered vision. The Sikh
Coalition got supermarkets that had an Osama costume with a turban and a stick
removed from their racks. One of its directors said, “If you lost a loved one
during the 9/11 attacks or during our nation’s war against al Qaida, or if
someone attacked your father in a hate crime because he wears a turban, I doubt
this costume would make you comfortable.”

Does this
not demean those who might choose to dress in this manner? Hate crimes predate
9/11 as has been noted: “During the 1979 hostage crisis, Sikhs were called
Iranian. During the first Iraq war, we were called Iraqi. After 9/11, we've
been called al-Qaeda, Taliban and Afghan, with all the accompanying slurs.”

Jagjit Singh
Chauhan, the driving force behind the separatist movement for Khalistan in
Indian Punjab, had a strong presence in the US and Canada. It is revealing that
no indigenous slur was cast on the Sikhs because of him.

The weight
of post 9/11 is a heavy stone. The first victim of reaction to it was a Sikh.
Anger that coagulated into fanaticism did not differentiate between a “towel
head” and a “rag on the head”. Coupled with a beard, these identity marks
harked back to Osama in the public imagination.

Can this not happen to others, too? Did the Sikhs not get
killed for being Sikhs in their home country, India, where the ruling party
conducted an operation right inside the Golden Temple? Have the Sikhs not had
to fight for their right to wear turbans, to carry their symbolic swords? Was
there any al Qaeda then?

That a term
like “mistaken xenophobia” is used in the mainstream makes it obvious who the
real targets are. That this does not disturb the diaspora as a whole is
distressing. There is a pecking order
among the ‘others’, and more often than not each group wants to keep its
universal master in a fine frame of mind. Co-option becomes slavery.

“I just can’t imagine going out without wearing a
handgun in today’s society. You’re just really asking for trouble especially in
our situation where there are so many people out there who hate us for looking
Sikh…From what I saw, he (Prabhjot Singh) wasn’t wearing a kirpan, and I think
that would’ve been a real deterrent…I think there are enough teachings in Sikh
history, like by Guru Gobind Singh, that we should be able to defend ourselves
and defend those who can’t defend themselves. That’s why, in my mind, we wear
the kirpan so it’s not a showpiece.”

Responses to
racism as well as defensiveness do become showpieces. The model and the
persecuted become eye-candy, granted space by those of privilege. The
commercial agenda is not to work on abuse, but on hurt sentiments. This gets
the community members to lend support in tangible ways. To be assimilated by those on a temporary
guilt trip loosens many strings, including the purse ones.

4 comments:

This is a very good and deep analysis cutting through a lot of surface stuff. I enjoyed reading it. It seems to me that this kind of view can be used to observe not just what's happening in the west but else where as well. Most countries do this sort of tokenism thing with minorities/non main stream people.

I am indeed perturbed about the number of people who start jubilating over token gestures. In this case it was double tokenism - one was the choice of model and then the reaction to Gap's "immediate action". In the US, and NY, that have seen the Occupy Movement & the culture of commerce, one would have thought there would be some skepticism.

I agree that this is not restricted to the west, and is prevalent in India too. Here race is replaced by caste/religion/regionalism. The difference is that, say, India does not have to deal with foreign immigrants, so the dynamics change.

Thank you for reading this and sharing your views. I wish more people had!

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A closer look

Writes. Rights.
From on-field journalism to armchair critique. Words are a weapon, they are also a shield.
Also, a frustrated artist. A frustrated singer. A frustrated gourmand. A frustrated photographer. This helps. It adds pathos to the plebeian.
I have a healthy disregard for objectivity.